Every now and then, I question myself on my art and if the choice I made for a career is right for me. You know, sometimes you just go through a bit of a funk where you don’t feel quite good enough and question if you should even bother at all. Every time I feel like this, I have a flip through my favourite photography book, ‘Pictures’ by Tim Walker, or have a Google on his latest projects – and immediately I remember why I chose to do photography. Especially after discovering this video.

Only recently I came across this interview with my absolute favourite photographer, Tim Walker, and it just makes me feel like everything is right again. I found so many similarities in his interview answers – the way he works, how he views things & the technicality of a camera, his love of styling, the way he looks up to and appreciates fashion photographers before him, and acknowledging his images are based on great team work – pretty much every word made me sigh with relief, as I find myself doing, thinking, and working in a much similar fashion, without even realising.

I cannot describe how much I love his work, and how connected I feel to his images. They immediately take me away to another world, a playful dream land where I feel like a child. This feeling is what inspires me to do the same with my own work – to create fairy tales, stories and far away lands where magic exists. And not just ‘Oh, that’s nice’ pictures, but something special, something wow, and believable – something that ‘touches’ us, as Tim describes in this video. And this is what Tim’s work does, and the way he does it, is by creating everything in real life – sets, props, locations, then using the camera to document it. Rather than creating the effects in post production or digitally, this is what creates an element of realism, however it also means a lot of hard work! Which is ok, because without hard work, it wouldn’t be anywhere near as special.

His advice ‘only photograph what you love’ really resonates with me, as I’ve spent over the 2 years photographing for other people and things that have no gain or reward other than it pays the bills – but for my soul, knowledge and growth, I gained nothing. Only recently I promised myself to focus on my own work, and even though I might be poor financially, I’m richer emotionally.

In the last part of the video, he talks about how lovely it would be for his images to inspire others to create, in the same way he felt inspired by the photographers before him… well, I would have to say he has achieved that and more!